


The First Meets The Last

by Jellycho (Nyxokal)



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, Netflixvania as setting but has elements from the games, POV Third Person Limited, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-03 20:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13348743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxokal/pseuds/Jellycho
Summary: How Trevor wishes he could open his eyes. He makes do, for now, with just fighting whatever paralysis has settled over him until he finds his voice again. “Who the hell are you?” Trevor slurs the question out.He hears a hum above. “A friend, you could say,” the other whispers.





	The First Meets The Last

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sacredduet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sacredduet/gifts).



> This is the second time I open a fic after a long absence with "so guess who got into ___" but, guess who got into Castlevania.
> 
> No, for real. Ever since watching Netflixvania my life has not known peace. I've marathoned about seven of the games on Youtube and plan on continuing, and I'm currently playing SOTN + both LoS games. Medusa Heads are physically manifesting in my house. And while I'd die for several of the Belmonts ~~(like Juste)~~ , Leon holds a very special place in my heart for being softe and charismatic as _fuck._ So, therefore, I wanted to write a little self-indulgent "what if" scenario where his spirit gets to meet Netflixvania's Trevor Belmont.
> 
> Further notes at the end. For now, I do hope you enjoy [dabs]

Three steps to the left to avoid the lunge directed at him, and upon recovery he takes the opening and thrusts his short sword forward. Trevor curses out loud when the monster blocks it easily with its shield, deflecting it so hard that he's thrown off balance and has to take a precious second to regain his footing.

Trevor growls under his breath, picking himself back up and jumping away from the monster's next forward dash. As if the rush to Dracula’s castle itself wasn’t enough of a bad time as is, of all times to be stuck fighting one of Dracula's minions on his own, the world just had to pick this one to throw a fucking _Skull Knight_ his way. The battle drags on for longer than he’d like, the monster too quick and its sword reaching too far for his own comfort, and he's growing tired and more desperate in this godforsaken, tiny room. Vampire Killer hangs heavy on his belt, and Trevor grits his teeth, parrying another lunge and panting with exhaustion as he awaits the perfect opportunity to use the whip.

He doesn't know where Alucard or Sypha are. It’s frustrating; they’d already been warned that this castle is a creature of chaos, ever-changing and ever dangerous, and yet they still foolishly managed to get caught in a trap and be separated from each other. Such a novice mistake to have made, but in the commotion of their entry Trevor had been caught unaware, the few words of warning Alucard gave lost when the ground gave in and they all lost sight of each other.

The fall left him at a disadvantage, but the Skull Knight’s immediate appearance forced him to get up and sharpen whatever senses had been shaken on landing. Now all Trevor can do is fight and hope that he’s the only one with luck shitty enough to have been caught down here with a Skull Knight, pray that he can finish this quick and get on with finding the others.

Shame how that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen soon.

An opening presents itself, at last, the moment Trevor manages to stun it with a powerful jab and rip the shield off the Knight’s skeletal hands. As the shield falls with a loud _clang_ Trevor sheaths his sword and wastes no time unfurling Vampire Killer; he knows what’s coming, and the sooner this is done, the better. Without a shield to protect itself the Knight’s torso is perfectly exposed, the red, crystal core that keeps it together and active visible and vulnerable to attack.

“There you are,” Trevor allows himself to grin, spinning in place to control the movement of the whip in his hands. “Got you right where I wanted!”

For a second Trevor entertains the question of how a skeletal creature could possibly emit such a loud roar without lungs, makes a mental note to write it down as a sidenote on the family bestiary when he’s out of this mess. He whips at the core, but it barely misses the Skull Knight when it ducks protectively and lunges forward again, sword first.

Trevor curses, jumping to the side right before the giant sword can impale him with extreme prejudice. He gets no time to rest when the Skull Knight slashes again and Trevor has to roll out of the way, cursing under his breath and trying to whip at the red core between dodges. This isn’t good. The enemy is getting faster and deadlier, and there’s still one more attack described in the bestiary that Trevor knows it’s keeping as a last resort; if the battle gets to that point, then it’ll be near impossible to kill it without getting seriously hurt in the process. And here, stuck within the walls of Dracula’s castle, the urgency is clear: Trevor needs to end this _now_ before things quickly get out of control.

“Come on,” he growls, lashing the whip again, trying to stun the Knight and stop it before it can dash forward again. “Come on!”

He has to find the others. Anxiety and exhaustion grip at him, and Trevor grows impatient. He pulls his weight back and whips again with all the strength he can muster. Trevor only has a second to regret it when the Knight stops in its tracks and raises its shield arm, Vampire Killer wrapping around the skeletal hand it touches. It doesn’t pull, but rather it roars and lunges with its sword hand, the quick motion catching Trevor by surprise before he can let go of the whip and properly dodge.

The pain that comes when the sword pierces his left side is hot, messy, and instantaneous. Trevor falls to the floor gracelessly, clutching the wound and barely biting back the scream that threatens to rise out of him. The Knight carelessly tosses Vampire Killer away and once again brings down its sword on Trevor with a shriek, forcing his senses back to action to roll away and pull himself back up to stand.

He keeps his wild eyes on the Knight, grits his teeth, opens and closes his free hand into a fist in an attempt to regain his focus. The wound is deep. His breathing is erratic with the strain of battle and the pain shooting up his torso with each inhale and exhale. This fight is quickly going from bad to worse, and he can feel warm blood soaking his shirt, the dizzying feeling of his heart pumping whatever last-minute adrenaline it can into his veins.

 _Fuck,_ he thinks, feeling everything crashing into him as he’s reduced to dodging in his panic. He can’t lose now. He can’t die now; Alucard and Sypha still need him. What happens to their quest if he doesn’t make it out of here? What happens to the world? What happens to _them?_

What happens to the Belmont name?

Back to the wall, Trevor grimaces, fist clenched. This ends _here._ His eyes fall off the Skull Knight and onto Vampire Killer; it rests on the floor, right behind the Knight. Silently, he makes a choice. The Knight dashes forward again and he jumps out of the way, ignoring the pain and letting go of his side to reach over for the little throwing knives on his shirt. They hit it in the face, distracting it just long enough for Trevor to rush and slide between its legs, reaching for Vampire Killer and rising once it’s back safely in his hands.

He ignores the way his blood marks the floor, the way nausea hits him as soon as he’s standing. Trevor blinks his eyes back into focus as the Knight turns around to face him, sees it lowering its stance and open its core. _Oh, shit,_ Trevor thinks. He swears out loud, spins and lashes the whip directly at the red core with as much force as he can.

The whip hits its mark.

With a powerful noise the red core cracks upon impact, and it doesn’t take long before it begins to shatter, the energy held within it unable to remain contained, pushing and bursting through the cracks until it explodes in a bright flash of white light. The Skull Knight screeches, dropping the sword and clawing desperately at its torso in a pathetic and futile attempt at self-preservation as it’s engulfed by the light. Trevor shields his eyes. Seconds later, once the light recedes and the screeching stops, he opens them back up to see the Knight unmoving, remaining in place before it slowly, carelessly falls apart piece by piece.

It takes him a second before he finally allows himself to drop his guard and take a deep breath. It’s instantly deemed as a bad idea when it only causes pain to shoot up his torso. “Finally,” Trevor grits out, Vampire Killer held tightly in his right hand while his left clutches at his wound. “Now if you would just be so kind as to stay fucking dead, unlike your red friends up on the first floor.”

The Knight remains unmoving.

Well, at least it’s listening to his request.

How stupid. Trevor wants to laugh, but with the adrenaline rush finally leaving him behind, he’s now in too much pain to allow himself that luxury. Instead he grimaces at the warmth of the blood covering his shirt, stumbles forward to go get his knives. Hopefully they won’t be damaged from that throw. He’ll still need them around just in case.

Oh, this is bad. It’s such a hassle just to _walk,_ and he has to bite back a yelp when leaning down to pick up the knives. They slip through his fingers more than once, and Trevor curses over the loud clank of metal against floor; he’s losing blood fast if his hands are already going numb, if his breathing is slowing down and his eyelids are getting dangerously heavier. By this point it’s only through healing magic that he’ll be able to recover from a wound this deep. He needs to find Sypha, fast. She’ll know what to do. Hell, he needs to find her and just make sure she’s okay.

And just like that it hits him. This is still Dracula’s castle, still full of deadly traps like the one that got him here in the first place, crawling with creatures of the dark and monsters that follow blindly in Dracula’s war against the world. Sypha and Alucard are still somewhere here, hopefully unscratched from their fall, but they’ll be looking for him. They still need to stop Dracula’s wrath. Trevor can’t die just yet. He has a mission to complete, damn it. He’s not going to go down so easily a few minutes into their storming the castle.

It’s like the weight of the world settles on his shoulders, the knowledge that he’s still needed in this world, that he still has a fight to win. He picks up the knives again and stumbles, loses his balance, ends up falling on his knees. Trevor laughs, twists his body so he can rest his back against the fallen remains of the Skull Knight. He has to get a move on, but his body feels like lead, refuses to answer to his request to please, please get up, please don’t let this be the end of the road. But he’s not going to get anywhere with a bleeding, open wound like this slowing him down, is he? What a fool. What kind of Belmont lets his impatience get the best of him in Dracula’s goddamn castle?

Once upon a time Trevor Belmont would’ve laughed in the face of death, not caring about how it came to him so long as he went down fighting. He’d ask what’s changed now, here in a quiet room as the world grows fainter, as his breathing slows, but he already knows the answer.

Or at least that’s what he tells himself in his daze, as he closes his eyes and quickly loses consciousness.

* * *

Death isn’t what he thought it would be like.

Or perhaps this isn’t death. It’s much too calm, too quiet, too serene, and he’s too aware of himself for this to be the end of the road. The weight of exhaustion settles over him and Trevor suddenly feels light, like he’s floating in place, wrapped in an odd tranquility that feels almost welcoming. He can’t move, can’t even feel his body. He feels tired. Trevor doesn’t know how long he’s been here for, wherever _here_ is, but the sweet stillness of this place manages to awaken the voice of uncertainty in his mind, the vaguest sensations of unease settling in his soul.

Just like that Trevor feels himself frowning ever so slightly. Oh, good; it seems as though all he needs to do is worry for his sensations to come back and for his body to respond. He tries opening his eyes and fails. He tries to sit up and that, too, fails. Instead Trevor suddenly becomes aware of two things: he’s not here alone, and whoever else is here with him, they’re holding his head on their lap and petting at his hair.

Trevor’s frown deepens.

Right away the fingers combing through his hair falter, then stop completely. Someone laughs, soft like the wind, and Trevor can’t help but feel alarmed at the sudden sound; he's defenseless and at their mercy, two things he just doesn't like. “Hello, Trevor,” a voice says, a pair of cold hands gently settling on both sides of his face. “How do you fare?”

What a stupid question to be asking someone who just bled all over the room, is the first thing he wants to say. Where is he, anyway? How did they get here? And how the hell do they know his name? Trevor means to ask them for their name at least, so he slowly, slowly manages to open his mouth and picks his words, only for all that comes out to be a slurred mumble instead.

Oh, what? Trevor tries again, gets stuck slurring again. It's like his tongue is made of iron and won't move, the effort to form a coherent string of letters that sound like a proper word being monumental and exhausting. Hearing this, the voice laughs. One of the hands on his face is removed, and once again the other person starts combing their fingers through his hair. It makes him feel tired, a bubbling, vague feeling of familiarity pulling through the anxiety at his consciousness.

The voice shushes him gently. “It’s alright,” they say. “Don’t strain yourself.”

How Trevor wishes he could open his eyes. He makes do, for now, with just fighting whatever paralysis has settled over him until he finds his voice again. “Who the hell are you?” Trevor slurs the question out.

He hears a hum above. “A friend, you could say,” the other whispers, petting at his hair.

Trevor groans, still struggles with moving his body. He wants to bat their hand away so badly. “If you could…” he trails off, takes a deep breath. Why is talking suddenly so exhausting? He tries again after swallowing hard. “Not do that…”

“Hm?”

“The hair…”

Right away the hand petting stops dead in its tracks. “Oh,” the person says, settling it back down so that they’re once again cupping Trevor’s face. Their hands are so cold. There’s a sigh laced with a little laugh, a sound so faint Trevor almost misses it. “I apologize,” they say. “I thought this would be comforting.”

It would’ve been, Trevor thinks, if the gesture wasn’t coming from someone whom he can’t see while he lies here paralyzed after fighting a Skull Knight and nearly bleeding out afterwards. Someone who has called him by his name without offering an explanation to how they know it or revealed their own identity, even, uncanny familiarity be damned. Trevor wants to ask again, demand the answers he knows the other won’t give if he doesn’t ask them himself, but fatigue and drowsiness cover him whole; all at once his energy drops and Trevor groans, unable to keep trying to move.

He just feels so _tired,_ so worn from the battle and all of his worries. All he wants to do is to sleep, accept the darkness as it comes and offers him eternal rest. It sounds so tempting. Trevor welcomes it now, and it feels like he's slipping out of consciousness again, whatever grasp he had on this place gone along with his strength as he allows himself to fall—

And then he feels the tapping on his forehead, incessant and steady, a rhythm from outside following that of his own pulse. Trevor huffs angrily, brought back to reality — or whatever this is — by this person’s insolent poking. “No no, Trevor. Wake up,” they say, their voice gentle and yet firm, breath close to Trevor’s face. “You can’t go yet.”

Ah, so he’s dying.

What a sobering realization to make. Trevor can’t feel his body, he can’t speak without exerting himself, and he feels exhausted as hell. It’s not too hard to make the connection, but it leaves him cold and heartbroken, the truth of his failure hurting him down to the bone. Somehow Trevor musters enough strength to loll his head to the side, huffing in disappointment, and ends up with the other’s hand over his mouth and nose. Undignified, perhaps, but what the hell should he care when he’s dead? Trevor feels movement underneath him right before the other person pushes his head back to its original position ever so gently, as if Trevor were something precious, as if Trevor were someone worth caring for even when he's failed all of Wallachia and beyond.

When he's failed Alucard and Sypha.

When he's failed every Belmont before him.

“I’m sorry,” the voice speaks again, cutting those thoughts in half. Trevor feels them brushing his bangs out of his face, frowns _again_ at the gesture. It just makes them laugh. “This is quite a load to deal with, isn't it? And you must be so confused.”

There’s a pause right afterwards, both in their actions and words. It’s a few seconds later that Trevor hears them sigh, and they set a hand over his forehead, as if cradling a young child. It somehow makes him feel small, heart stabbed with a nostalgic feeling Trevor hasn't felt since when he was a young boy. “I know you very well, Trevor Belmont,” they speak, words heavy, filled with a contagious and overwhelming sadness. “And I know your family very well. I know the burden your bloodline carries, know the struggles you’ve inherited. So when I sensed your early presence in this realm, I knew something was wrong.”

They know his family. A sudden wave of irritation washes over Trevor, has him groaning. “Who... _are_ you?” Trevor asks again, letting all of his displeasure shine through in his words.

“Please, I mean no disrespect. I can promise you that I am someone you can trust." A pause. "Though... I suppose that’s not good enough of an answer for a man of action such as yourself.” The laugh that comes next doesn’t feel mirthful in the slightest. “Perhaps my name would suffice... Well, then. You may call me Leon.”

 _Leon,_ Trevor repeats in his mind. There’s something odd about that name, about the way it pulls at Trevor’s memory and tells him that he’s head it before, that he should know exactly who this person is. But it keeps evading him, always out of reach. It's a fog he cannot clear. Trevor manages to crack open one eye and is a little dismayed when all he can see is nothing but a blurry mess, colours and shapes mixing together save for a very select few. He catches sight of Leon above, leaning down over him; there’s red and black all over their form, something that looks like short, blond hair.

If only he could see their face, Trevor laments as he closes his eye. Leon hums, removes their hand to go back to brushing at his hair. Trevor stops caring about it; it’s just a lost cause to stop them from doing that, it seems. “How cruel of the world to take everything from you the way it has,” Leon sighs again. “Believe me when I say that I grieve with you.

“But you mustn’t give up just yet,” Leon continues, tapping at Trevor’s scalp as if to keep him from falling asleep again. “Dracula’s curse of darkness still runs across the lands of Wallachia, but there is still hope. You, the last living son of the house of Belmont, still have much work left to do.”

Every single fucking time Leon mentions the Belmonts Trevor feels his heart drop. It's probably not their intention, but everything about Leon's statement hurts like a knife, reminds Trevor of the sour failure that led him here in the first place. He manages to scoff and smirk, gathers enough of his strength to speak again.

“Can’t quite… do that if I’m dead,” Trevor quips.

Once again Leon does that little thing where they laugh and sigh at the same time, so quietly and under their breath. They shush Trevor. “Please, there is no reason to be so pessimistic.” They hum a little. Leon taps at Trevor's scalp again, gentler this time. “It’s not too late, Trevor. You can still go back.”

What? Trevor takes a deep breath. “How…?”

“You are only dying. That does not mean you are dead,” Leon says. Trevor feels his face contort into a scowl, and he guesses Leon must've seen it when they then add, quickly and while laughing, “I know, I know. It sounds confusing, but just trust me when I say that your time in the realm of the living isn’t over yet.”

Leon's cold hands cup at his face again, and Trevor can feel them shift as they lean down a little closer, just enough for it to be a private gesture, but not enough for it to feel awkward. Somehow, though, it all feels comforting instead; there is that sense of peculiar familiarity again, that strange feeling that makes him feel like a child being cared for, a certain something in Leon that reminds him of a family that's now long gone. It's bittersweet, and it's weird, but Trevor lets it be for now, lets the sorrowful air between the two of them spread.

"Your heart still beats with the desire to do the right thing, does it not? And your bonds, they still tie you to the world," Leon assures. Trevor manages to open his eyes, and this close, he thinks he can see their gentle, melancholic smile and gaze. "Young one," Leon continues, "souls like ours, we are difficult to bring down, and it's even harder for us to stay down once beaten. If there's one thing we're known for, it is our obstinate desperation for clinging to life. Our determination, our hope."

Leon pauses to smile a little brighter, gently patting at Trevor's right cheek. Their image becomes a little clearer. "That is why you can't stay here, Trevor. You must wake up, be the hope and the light that the Belmont name has symbolized for the past three hundred and sixty two years. Wallachia is waiting for you. Adrian and Sypha" — Leon sets a finger over Trevor's lips to silence him when they hear him gasping at his words — "are waiting for you. They still need you."

"But what if I fail?" Trevor blurts out as soon as Leon removes his finger. He feels so damn tired. He turns his head away to the left and blinks away stubborn, embarrassing tears; he's not going to start crying now, goddamn it. There's more pressing matters at the moment.

For a second Trevor is vulnerable, but he stops himself, shuts his eyes tight. God, Trevor thinks. This is so much to deal with. Here he is, lying on the ground and with his head on some kind stranger's lap, on the receiving end of a pep talk about why he should care about postponing his own death. Trevor can see a little better now, can look on into the endless grey and white of wherever this place he's now in. There's a fog in the distance, obscuring the horizon. In his peripheral vision, Trevor sees the striped black fabric of Leon's pants, catches a glimpse of their gloved left hand as they lower it to the ground.

They're petting at his goddamn hair with their right hand again. "You will not," Trevor hears the smile in Leon's voice, the fondness hidden under their words. "You are a Belmont, and your companions are faithful and powerful. You could never fail."

Such blind faith... Trevor scoffs. Leon says that with such conviction, such confidence, that it's difficult for him to bite back and formulate anything sarcastic to say, to press the bitterness in his heart into words and shoot down Leon's expectations of him. The last living son of the house of Belmont or not, Trevor's still here, dying after a botched battle with one of Dracula's followers. And if this is what happens on the first few hours within the castle's walls, then there is no real guarantee that just the three of them will be enough to defeat Dracula.

But. But, damn it, they at least have to _try._ And Leon's words... Trevor would be lying if he said they don't somehow feel comforting, if they didn't feel like they're coming from someone who knows exactly what it is that they're talking about. Leon's features, murky in the exhausted daze of Trevor's mind, remain unchanging and ever hopeful. They look so young, and yet their eyes feel so old, so full of experience and a wisdom Trevor can only hope to one day achieve. Just who _are_ they?

"Fine," he ends up saying, closing his eyes to sigh tiredly. His body and mind now feel light, weightless. "S'pose I'll try."

Leon laughs quietly. It surprises Trevor when this time, finally, he does hear some humour in their voice, though they sound distant. "Trevor Belmont," Leon taps on his cheek to get him to open his eyes again and meet their gaze, but everything is blurry again. "I pray you understand when I say that I hope we won’t have to meet again for a very, very long time.”

Trevor snorts slowly. "Likewise, I guess."

"Good. And, Trevor?" Leon, calls his name, and when Trevor looks at them, he sees peace. He stares for a second. And Leon, smile radiant, eyes full of something Trevor can't quite place, slowly fades away into the white fog. Trevor can feel them cup his face again, and this time, their hands are warm.

"Don’t ever forget: we are all proud of you.”

When he blinks his eyes a tear falls, and the scene around him has already abruptly changed. Gone is the fog and the mist, replaced by the cold, stone walls of the basement levels of Dracula's castle, the strange mechanisms that litter the building, the noise. The world is still blurry and difficult to make out, but he can tell that the figure above him has changed; the reds and blacks have been swapped for a sharp blue instead. He finds that he still can't properly move his body, and the world is spinning all around him as his mind reconnects with itself, but at least Trevor can feel the vague sensations of pain where his wound lies.

Or rather, where his wound _was._ He expects the monumental pain of the stab wound to shoot up his torso, but it doesn't come. There's discomfort and an unmistakable ache of healing skin and tissue, yes, along with dried and wet blood still caking his shirt, but Trevor's wound has been closed. He's back. He's alive, and he's healing, and he's _back._

And—

"Trevor, you're awake!" someone calls his name, and right away Trevor recognizes the voice as belonging to Sypha. Judging by how close it is he guesses it's also her who's cupping his face, her smaller, warmer hands trembling and distinctly contrasting with the previous hold. He blinks up at her, slowly making out her relieved features in the low light. "Oh, thank god," she adds. "Thank god it worked."

"What the hell happened?" Trevor asks, setting a hand on his left side. And maybe that is actually a stupid thing to ask in the first place, he thinks afterwards. He clears his throat. "What did you do?"

Alucard's presence is so faint that Trevor almost misses him until he rises to stand. Was he kneeling? "Sypha found me first. We then came looking for you and found you here, sitting in a pool of your own blood," he speaks, hand tightening on the hilt of his sword. His golden eyes narrow. "Your heart-rate was dangerously slow. We thought you were _dead._ If it hadn't been for Sypha finding a Life Gem shard earlier, I—"

He stops himself there, but his words still hang in the air. Trevor feels his mouth dry. They all know exactly what it was that he wanted to say, anyway.

The uncomfortable air that settles around them is heavy, and for a second Trevor almost resents Alucard for bringing it down on them. He's just come back from the dead, damn it. He doesn't need any more grim moods. Trevor sighs instead, dropping the argument before it can burst out of him; the least he can do is avoid pushing at someone who is very visibly trying to hold it together in the first place. "Well," Trevor says, groaning a little and reaching up to pat at Sypha's cheek. It feels good to finally be able to move. "Thanks for bringing me back, then. Dying is terrible."

"I would imagine," she replies. He chooses not to focus on how nervous her laugh sounds. Sypha's hands are still trembling when she grins down at him, when she adds, voice gentle, "It's good to have you back, Belmont."

He instantaneously smiles back at her. It's strange, really. Trevor hadn't realized how much he'd missed them while in the border between life and death, or how good it feels to be able to see their relief at having him back. What the hell was he thinking, saying he'd failed them. After all this time, haven't they all established that whenever one falls, the others will fight tooth and nail to save them? These two are his safety rope. Leon was right—

Oh, fuck. Leon. The name pops back into his now clear mind, and just like that, everything clicks; the petting, the familiarity, the comforting air around Leon. _‘I grieve with you,’_ he'd said. Trevor's eyes widen. "Fuck," he breathes, alternating between looking at an alarmed Alucard and a worried Sypha. "Fuck. I think I met my ancestor."

"...Pardon?" Alucard chimes in first.

Trevor starts to laugh. He can't stand the other two's distressed looks at his outburst, so he sets an arm over his eyes, grins. "I mean, I _was_ dying," he says, "so maybe my judgement should be taken with a grain of salt, but. He said his name was Leon." Trevor scoffs. "Leon Belmont. How did I not make the connection earlier?"

"Are you certain?" Sypha asks after a short stretch of silence. She sounds so flabbergasted that it's almost a little funny. "Your ancestor?"

"The house of Belmont was officially established in 1094, three hundred and sixty two years ago, by a knight named Leon Belmont."

 _'We are all proud of you,'_ Leon's last words echo in his mind. It's too much of a coincidence. Either Trevor had one hell of a dying hallucination or the man himself really came to stall for time until Sypha saved him. Is he really deserving of such a honour? Trevor removes his arm from over his eyes, is unsurprised when he tries to meet Alucard's gaze and fails. The dhampir looks away instead, hand still on the hilt of his sword. Trevor wonders if Alucard's heard the stories. According to old family records and legends, Leon is supposed to be the first to have confronted Dracula and survived to tell the tale, after all.

But Alucard says nothing. The blond sighs, finally lets go of his sword. He turns to look at Trevor again, and it's perhaps a little too reassuring to see his eyes have softened considerably. "We should get moving," he urges instead. "How do you feel?"

A touchy subject, perhaps. Trevor can't blame him. He shrugs. "Considerably better," he offers. Then his words are lost in a groan when he tries to sit up, his body protesting the action before Sypha helps him the rest of the way. Trevor takes a second to give her a grateful look and to catch his breath. "Okay. Perhaps give me two more minutes."

He sees Alucard nod. "Don't overdo it," Sypha chastises behind him. "You lost a lot of blood. The shard healed you, but it still wasn't enough for a full recovery. You must be careful."

"Careful is my middle name," Trevor jokes. Sypha's immediate deadpan look and Alucard's huff make him laugh. "What? Don't tell me you didn't know the C in my name stands for Careful."

She flicks his forehead, but otherwise says nothing. The previous conversation dies and is replaced by Trevor asking if the two of them are alright, urging them to share what they've seen while the three of them were separated. Turns out neither of them had to fight anything, and just like that Trevor is overwhelmed with relief.

He doesn't know why he was so worried. Trevor knows he can trust them to take care of themselves, but a part of him still nagged at him to protect them regardless. Maybe that's just what happens when he gets attached. It's just the three of them storming Dracula's castle, but they've already fought through hell and back to get here, and damn if they're not going to stop this mess from continuing. A hunter, a scholar, and a dhampir. What a strange trio they make, but they're powerful, ready to give it all for each other and achieve their goal. Leon was right to trust in them, and suddenly his earlier conviction doesn't seem so out of place.

There's no way they can fail.

**Author's Note:**

>   * First of all: Thanks, Red, for being an enabler and falling into Castlevania hell with me. This fic wouldn't exist if it weren't for him, so, everybody clap your hands now for Red Undertale. Also thank you, Aera, for correcting mistakes
>   * I am getting the hang of these characters, so if this feels a little wonky, now you know why. I do hope I did them a bit of justice, though.
>   * I might've fucked up a bit with what kind of things Sypha's magic can do, but I guess you can take it as Trevor thinking while losing blood. I was just thinking about Druids anyway. On that note, I brought in Life Gems from LoS because I needed something that wasn't a potion to work with for healing Trevor
>   * The Skull Knight fight was heavily based on both the CV3 and the HoD fights. I tried to translate it into a Netflixvania-feeling battle while keeping the game elements intact, and I hope I at least managed somehow
>   * I entertained the idea of Leon also being within Vampire Killer like Sara is for a bit, but decided against it in the end so as to not contradict Netflixvania's canon that Vampire Killer is just consecrated. Instead I've decided to go with him just being stuck in the land between life and death, unable to rest as he just wants to watch over his descendants, waiting for each and every one of them and/or for Mathias to finally arrive when their time comes
>   * I kept neutral pronouns for Leon just bc Trevor couldn't get a good look at him, and idk, it felt appropriate :V Also, I've always pictured Leon as kind of a foolish fool, but a very, very sweet and nurturing foolish fool. I hope that this felt ic enough regardless of that
> 



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